![]() Since David Schneider joined the firm from ServiceNow, where he was once president, Schneider has met with Kothari twice a month, Kothari says, for coaching. Notion chief resource officer Olivia Nottebohm, a Google and Dropbox veteran, met Kothari and Zhao through Coatue, initially to advise as a go-to market expert. Sequoia, meanwhile, knew Notion through its portfolio company Inkling, where Zhao once worked, and whose former CEO Matt MacInnis had written Notion a small Scout check on Sequoia’s behalf early on. Through MacInnis, Notion met Vernal, an executive at Facebook and angel investor who later joined Sequoia in 2016. Vernal’s close colleague at Facebook: Marooney, the social giant’s former longtime head of communications. The two are neighbors Coatue’s also an investor in startup Rippling, where MacInnis now serves as COO. “This was probably the fastest round to come together in my time at Sequoia, definitely top two or three,” Vernal says. The other notable new investor in the round: Base10 Partners, the firm founded by Adeyemi Ajao. Notion’s general counsel, Hasani Caraway, introduced the startup to Base10. The firm’s values - it’s pledged to donate half of the carried interest from its most recent fund to support scholarships at historically black colleges - helped make Notion want to partner with it, according to Kothari. The lesson: Notion’s executives repeatedly brought up the company’s community as a differentiator its investors turned to the same in justifying such a large investment and valuation. Only more recently has the company appeared an overnight success, meaning it’s reached $300 million-plus investment with less dilution than typical.įor other entrepreneurs, Vernal notes that Notion spent three to four years at seed-stage focused on its product. “If an entrepreneur can build an organic, product-led growth product like this, then they definitely should. Capital Ventures, and numerous individual investors, the most notable being Elad Gil, ex-vice president of Twitter.It’s hard,” Vernal says.Īnd at Notion, Kothari says his message for employees after reaching a $10 billion valuation has been to quote his former boss at LinkedIn and mentor, Jeff Weiner. The startup is backed by investment firms such as Sequoia Capital, A. Headquartered in San Francisco, Notion has over 40 employees. It is notable that Cannon also led the funding round raised by Quill, a potential competitor of Notion. In my view, Notion is both of those.” Cannon had been pestering the executives of Notion for the past 18 months to accept the investment. Index Ventures partner Sarah Cannon revealed, “In times of economic uncertainty you only want to invest in best-in-class and generation-defining companies. Kothari referred to the new funds as “a signal of stability.” The startup plans to grasp the opportunity and expand its customer base through additional funds. The work from the home situation has led to an increase in the users of their apps. However, the recent pandemic COVID - 19 has made the executives to reassess their decision. He further added that the operations of the company had never been constrained by money. ![]() The founders believe that the company’s apps would replace Microsoft office suite.Īkshay Kothari, CEO of Notion, has earlier stated, “We’ve had opportunities to raise a lot more, but we’ve never felt like if we had more money we could grow faster,” expressing the company’s disinterest in raising new capital. It considers itself as the competitor of Microsoft. ![]() The startup offers its services on a subscription-based model. It offers highly customizable apps such as note-taking, tasks, wikis, and databases aimed at increasing the productivity. The funding came as a surprise to many as Notion executives were had declined investments from major investors in the past.įounded in 2016, the company provides an all-in-one online workspace to enterprise customers. ![]() Prior to this, the company had only raised $10 million at a valuation of $800 million. The funding has increased the company’s valuation to $2 million and allowed it to gain the unicorn rank now. ![]() The workspace productivity platform recently announced that it has raised $50 million in its latest funding round led by Index Ventures. ![]()
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